How Honest Men Became The Presidents Men

Performed our annual viewing of All The President’s Men, the 1976 film that defined journalism in the face of evil Dick Nixon. To say the movie was influential in its time is like saying Michael Jordan had an effect on running-shoe sales. 

The portrayal of the plucky Washington Post and a pair of “who dey’?” reporters caused a generation of young journalists— us included— to Fight The Power using a reporter’s notebook. We took it as a clarion call to become investigative reporters to fight the evils of a shadowy government and a corrupt media/ bureaucratic colossus. 

Watching Alan J. Paula’s thriller over the years strengthened our resolve when it looked like no one cared about hearing our stories of wrongs done. We dreamed of meeting Deep Throat (who turned out to be FBI) in an abandoned parking lot at midnight to receive the Holy Orders of Follow The Money. 

ATPM won Oscar nominations for Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, and it cemented a mindset that the greatest threat to America was from the Right. Through moral supremacy the Left gained a get-out-of-jail card on all issues. It’s no exaggeration to say that the election of America’s first black president— Barack Obama— was a product of the conversion of ungrounded Boomers whose worldview was shaped by the movie. 

Then something funny happened. The self-satisfied pursuers of Nixon evolved into the incestuous corrupt party of Wall Street, Hollywood, the upholders of the status quo. They put a chokehold on media, excusing Hillary Clinton— the female Richard Nixon— of exposing state secrets on her server. They shrugged when one of their pals had a spot of bother that would land anyone else in jail.

Then these bloated progressive cadres blew the 2016 election to Donald Trump, the Al Czervik of politics . The tables were turned. Reporters  and editors went from cheering for the story to cheering for their friends in the story. It couldn’t be “our fault. We don’t even know people who voted for Trump”. Carl Bernstein, the tenacious terrier of Watergate renown, was suddenly on CNN decrying an outsider who was trying to flip the dinner table.

The issues he described were about Trump’s shady Russians, urination, secret accounts, self dealing, cheating in golf… you name it. But the real thrust for Bernstein was putting Trump in in his place. The man who gleefully defenestrated Nixon, the most popular president in U.S. history, was openly barking like a seal for shutting down inquisitions of anyone threatened by Trump.  (Later he extended that to Covid Anti-vaxxers.) 

It was a renunciation of everything the honest reporter had stood for in the film. A raised finger to those who’d taken him seriously as a dispassionate observer of facts. Many others joined him in this dog-pile. But Bernstein always led with his laurels from All The President’s men. His sanctimony knew no bounds. He cashed in on that movie of the book he co-authored with Bob Woodward. 

While Carl bayed at the moon, Woodward became the scribe from inside, the purveyor of gossip and leaks to embarrass Trump (who frankly needed no help in self-immolation). Working the world of anonymous sources, as he’d done in ATPM, he bolstered the hysteria of the fashionable Left. Everywhere Deep Throats popped up to give him dirt. 

Needless to say, this back story of how the Left went rogue now makes watching the original film a hollow experience. Gone is the thrill of the chase, the delineation of good and evil. There is only the bitter irony of the pair as honest reporters before they became rich sell-outs.

Their treachery is underscored by other left-leaning reporters and journalists who saw the rot in the Watergate culture and— contrary to Woodward and Bernstein— abandoned ship. Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and a few more stopped holding their noses and left the den of hypocrites. (RFK Jr. has done the same inside the Democratic Party.) 

There has been no All The President’s Men in Canada, largely because the dissemination of news in the nation has long been in the chokehold of a small corporate cadre— and a government funded national network. Occasionally we had peeks at the shenanigans— remember Jean Chretien’s personalized golf balls during the Sponsorship Scandal? 

But Right Think almost always carried the day. The bovine herds of Justin Trudeau groupies are testament to how hermetically sealed Canada’s ruling class has been recently. Often the educated and sophisticated are the most gullible to his oily charms. 

But all that has been changed by social media. The unchecked torrent of information that the Establishment thought it controlled came spilling out. Much of it was garbage. But enough of it contained the seeds of a truth hidden for generations from public view by elite censors. It became acceptable again to talk about the JFK assassination. Jeffrey Epstein became a thing. 

With virtually no help from the Media Party social media has taken Genial Joe Biden to the head of a longstanding crime family shaking down the worst people in the worst places. This week’s first-person testimony from family pal Devon Archer put Joe at the heart of his son’s sleaze, hopping on phone calls to confirm the grift in exchange for over $50M. The CNN/MSNBC excuses were funnier that anything running on CBS or NBC these days. 

In retaliation, the Biden/ DOJ syndicate has thrown repeated indictments at Trump in the hours after the most damaging Hunter Biden revelations. The timing is no coincidence. Because they can’t still control media with a shoulder tap they’ve moved on to criminalizing speech they don’t like. Using the power if the American state police. 

Who will win this grim fight to the death? Who knows? Most wish both sides could lose. In fact, the whole thing would make a great movie. But after All The President’s Men, who’s ever going to believe a movie about the Media Party and their cronies doing anything straight again? 

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the fifth-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His prize-listed 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx